Description: "Originally published in Spanish in 2012 as Si vivieramos en un lugar normal by Editorial Anagrama, S.A., Barcelona, Spain. English translation originally published in 2013 by And Other Stories, Great Britain"--Title page verso.
Brief description: Juan Pablo Villalobos was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1973. He studied marketing and Spanish literature. He has researched such diverse topics as the influence of the avant-garde on the work of César Aira and the flexibility of pipelines for electrical installations. He is the author of books including Down the Rabbit Hole and Quesadillas. He lives in Barcelona, Spain.
Review Quotes:
"Villalobos is one tablespoon Eugene Ionesco, desperately but hopefully advocating nihilism; a dash of Harold Pinter, catapulting his characters into oblivion; and a pinch of Suzan Lori-Parks, igniting political allegory with sibling rivalry . . . Pure fantastical rapture." --Julie Morse, The Rumpus
"Quesadillas is fast-paced and colloquial; it is troubling and funny all at once . . . Quesadillas is an unusual and important novel that deserves to be read." --Arthur Dixon, World Literature Today "Mr. Villalobos's novels are short, dark, comic, ribald and surreal. They aren't so much manic-depressive as they are, to borrow Delmore Schwartz's phrasing, manic-impressive. This writer stares down serious issues--poverty, class, systemic violence--and doesn't analyze them so much as sneeze all over them . . . It's all delicious, and resonant." --Dwight Garner, The New York Times Book Review "[A] vibrant, comic novel." --Leigh Newman, Oprah.com "A wildly funny farce that's also surprisingly moving." --BookPage "Wonderful . . . This is a rich book--an inflationary quesadilla, overflowing with cheese." --Benjamin Rybeck, Three Guys One Book "It's a trick to use the f-word three times in a novel's first sentence and still be as charming and disarming as Juan Pablo Villalobos manages to be in the delightful Quesadillas. . . Quesadillas is frequently laugh-out-loud funny." --Nick DiMartino, Shelf Awareness "If you haven't expanded your horizons by reading literature from around the globe in 2014, Juan Pablo Villalobos, the Mexican-born writer living in Brazil, might be your best place to start." --Jason Diamond, Flavorwire "Quesadillas . . . does for magic realism what Down the Rabbit Hole did for 'narco-literature' . . . The high-keyed domestic comedy is enjoyable for its own sake, but provides cover for a satirical assault on the mendacity of Mexican politics." --Alfred Hickling, The Guardian "Riotous . . . Villalobos has inaugurated a new kind of avant-garde novel, one whose grasp of certain dehumanizing political realities never erodes the power to dream something better." --Kirkus (starred review)